scholarly journals Prevalence of Self Medication Practice among Dental Undergraduates in a Dental college

2020 ◽  
Vol 58 (221) ◽  
Author(s):  
Aastha Shrestha ◽  
Nirjala Laxmi Madhikarmi

Introduction: Self-medication practice among future prescribers can cause a serious threat to thehealth care profession. There has been an increasing trend among medical and dental students forself-medication. The objective of our study was to find the prevalence and practice of self-medicationamong dental undergraduates in Kantipur Dental College and Teaching Hospital. Methods: A descriptive cross-sectional study was conducted among all the dental undergraduatestudents of Kantipur Dental College, Kathmandu, from July to September 2018. Ethical clearancewas obtained from the institutional review board. A convenience sampling method was used. A prevalidated questionnaire was handed to the students in their classroom to collect the data. The datawere analyzed using Statistical Package for the Social Sciences version 16 and Microsoft Excel 2010and presented as frequency and percentage. Results: The prevalence of self-medication among dental undergraduates was found to be in 150(83.3%) out of a total of 180 students who participated in the study. Conclusions: Self-medication was commonly practiced by dental students. Self-medication shouldbe considered as a serious threat, especially among the students with inadequate knowledge of drug,dose, and duration of treatment.

2020 ◽  
Vol 58 (225) ◽  
Author(s):  
Namita Kumari Mandal ◽  
Gajendra Prasad Rauniyar ◽  
Dilli Sher Rai ◽  
Dipesh Raj Panday ◽  
Ramayan Kushwaha ◽  
...  

Introduction: Self-medication plays significant role in the development of adverse drug reactions,antibiotic resistance, and masking of underlying diseases. Medical students have some knowledgeabout the use of antibiotics and have a higher chance of irrational and injudicious use. This studyaims to find the prevalence of self-medication practice of antibiotics among medical and dentalundergraduate students. Methods: A descriptive cross-sectional study was done among medical and dental undergraduatestudents from the first year to the fifth year at BP Koirala Institute of Health Sciences from 1st June2018 to 30th August 2018. Ethical approval was obtained from the Institutional Review Committee(IRC/1210/018). Whole sampling was done. Data was collected using a self-responding, semistructured questionnaire and analyzed using Statistical Package for the Social Sciences version 11.5. Results: In total 558 students, the prevalence of self-medication practice of different antibioticswas 285 (51.1%) within the past year. Among self-medicated students, 152 (53.3%) were males. Thecommon drug self-medicated was Azithromycin 80 (28.1%) and the common medical condition touse non-prescription antibiotics was for treatment of sore throat with runny nose 129 (45.3%). Themain source for obtaining non-prescription antibiotics were retail pharmacies 157 (55.1%). Conclusions: Self-medication with antibiotics was at increasing rate with each succeeding yearsof the medical courses. Medical students should be made aware of the rational use of antibioticsby incorporating appropriate courses in their academic curriculum for more refined practice onantibiotics rather than advancement of theoretical knowledge alone.


2019 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 143-149 ◽  
Author(s):  
Khalid Aboalshamat ◽  
Sharifah Alkiyadi ◽  
Sarah Alsaleh ◽  
Rana Reda ◽  
Sharifa Alkhaldi ◽  
...  

Background:Recently, social media use has been rising among dental students and practitioners.Objective:The aim of this study was to investigate the usage, attitudes, and professionalism on social media among dental students and dentists in Saudi Arabia.Methods:This cross-sectional study investigated 779 dental students, interns, and dentists recruited from university hospitals and private clinics in three major cities (Jeddah, Riyadh, and Dammam), representing the eastern, central, and western regions of Saudi Arabia. Validated questionnaires were distributed to the participants asking about the use of social media for general purposes and professional purposes, attitudes on the social media, professionalism on social media, and the use of social media for marketing purposes. This study was ethically reviewed and approved by the Faculty of Dentistry Institutional Review Board, Umm Al-Qura University with application number (102-18).Results:Among the participants, the social media platforms most frequently used on a weekly basis are WhatsApp (m = 6.13 days/week, SD = 2.10), Snapchat (m = 5.33, SD = 2.65), and Instagram (m = 4.63, SD = 2.84). LinkedIn was the least frequently used platform. The most common professional uses were to watch clinical procedures (80.49%), find new information (79.59%), learn from peers (61.1%), and communicate with patients (5.76%). Only 47.75% followed their university or workplace professionalism guidelines, and 31.74% do not have any professionalism guidelines for using social media. There were 28.75% of participants who had considered posting information/photos about a patient without the patient’s permission, those who had criticized a dental colleague numbered 49.04%, and 59.69% had criticized a dental organization. However, only a few items had statistically significant differences between dental students and dentists.Conclusion:More stringent guidelines regarding proper conduct online should be implemented and included in the dental continuous education material.


2020 ◽  
Vol 58 (224) ◽  
Author(s):  
Rosina Bhattarai ◽  
Sunita Khanal ◽  
Sujita Shrestha

Introduction: Self-medication means the use of medications for the treatment of any disease ontheir own, without consulting any healthcare professional. At times self-medication can be usefulif practiced correctly by saving time and money, whereas disadvantages often occur due to lackof evaluation by trained medical professionals and delay ineffective treatment and can result inunnecessary expenses and drug dependence. This study was conducted to find out the self-medicationbehavior and its associated factors among patients visiting a dental hospital in Kathmandu. Methods: A hospital-based, cross-sectional study was conducted on 265 patients in Kantipur DentalCollege from December 2019 to January 2020 among the patients attending the dental Out PatientDepartment. Ethical clearance was obtained from the Institutional Review Committee of KantipurDental College. A convenience sampling technique was used. Proformas were prepared in English,translated to Nepali and re-translated to English by the back-translation method. Data entry wasdone in Microsoft Excel and analysis in SPSS 20. Descriptive statistics was done. Results: The prevalence of self-medication practice was found to be 166 (62.6%). Out of totalparticipants, 99 (59.6%) consumed medicines for few days only and the most common triggeringfactor was found to be toothache in 101 (60.8%) participants. The most common reason for selfmedication was found to be a previous experience of treating similar illnesses. Conclusions: The prevalence of self-medication was found to be low as compared to the study donein similar settings. Self-medication practice is a sensitive issue that hasn’t been given the requiredconsideration. 


2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 1108-1118
Author(s):  
Birendra Shrivastava ◽  
Omi Bajracharya ◽  
Rajani Shakya

Self-medicine has become one of the important components in day-to-day life to treat mild ailments. If not used rationally, it may lead to serious public health issues. The aim of this study is to explore the prevalence, knowledge, and associated risk factors of self-medication practice among the community of the Lalitpur Metropolitan City of Nepal. A cross-sectional community based prospective study was conducted among 1,004 participants of the Lalitpur Metropolitan City using a pretested and validated questionnaire. The collected data were analyzed using descriptive and inferential analysis with an alpha level of 0.05 by using SPSS. The prevalence of self-medication was 45.20%. The three most common ailments for practicing self-medication were fever, headache, and cough/cold. The top reason for self-medication was minor illness. The study indicated that overall knowledge scores were significantly associated with self-medication (P<0.001). Multiple logistic regression showed the elderly are more oriented towards self-medication practice [AOR=5.22 (95%CI: 2.73-9.98)]. The health professional families have a high affinity towards self-medication practice [AOR=2.82 (95%CI: 1.68-4.75)]. Likewise, storing medicine at home [AOR= 7.01 (95%CI: 5.10-9.64)] and poor knowledge of medicine use were [AOR=1.81 (95%CI: 1.14-2.88)] more likely to prefer self-medication. The prevalence of self-medication was high, mostly due to the poor knowledge about appropriate medicine used. Self-medication is unavoidable in many situations; therefore, implementation of action plans to improve awareness about the consequences of self-medication is needed, thus facilitating its responsible use by the community.


Author(s):  
Mohammad Shokrzadeh ◽  
Reza Hoseinpoor ◽  
Danial Jafari ◽  
Jafar Jalilian ◽  
Yaghoub Shayeste

Background and Purpose: Self-medication is an important concern in every part of the world. The aim of this study was to estimate the prevalence and to investigate the associate factors of self-medication among adults in Gorgan, north of Iran.  Materials and Methods: This descriptive cross-sectional study was carried out among adults aged 12 years and above who were residents in Gorgan city. The participants were selected using the multi-stage cluster sampling method. SPSS Software and Pearson's chi-squared test were used for data analysis. Results: A total of 592 households with 2050 respondents were visited. The prevalence of self-medication was 67.9%. A larger number of females were self-medicating (71.3%) than males (63.5%). The majority of the respondents self-medicated because of the previous use experience (59.3%). The main indication for self-medication use was headache (60.8%).  Analgesics were the most commonly self-medicated by the respondents (83.9%). Also, 88.6% of the respondents prepared their drug from drugstores. Furthermore, there were significant differences between self-medication and demographics characteristics including gender, age group, marital status, occupation, education level and income (p<0.05). Conclusion: The prevalence of self-medication especially with analgesics is relatively high among adult city-dwellers in Gorgan. So, preventive measures, such as strengthening of the communities awareness on the side effects of self-medication practice and regulation of pharmacies are very important mechanisms to decrease the practice. 


Author(s):  
Monika Mishra

Background: According to World Health Organization (WHO), self medication is use of medicines to treat self recognized symptoms, or use of a prescribed medicine for chronic symptoms. It is associated with use of prescription drugs, alternative medicines and over the counter drugs (OTC). Methods: This was a prospective, observational, questionnaire based study where two groups of students were interviewed with a prevalidated questionnaire. The first group comprised of students from MBBS while the second group consisted of students of paramedical courses namely physiotherapy, operation theatre technicians and lab technicians. Results: A total of 200 students with an average age 19.62±0.65 years participated in the study. Among these students, 100 were medical students. All the students had practiced self medication however, only 51.00% agreed with the concept of self-medication. Considering the significant „p‟ value to be <0.05 there was a significant difference among the 2 groups with respect to awareness of generic and brand names of the drugs and importance of completing the course of treatment. 51.00% of medical and 29.00% paramedical students were aware about generic and brand names of drugs while knowledge about importance of completing course of treatment was present in 62% medical and 42% paramedical students. (p value<0.05). Also, there was no significant difference regarding the knowledge about the content, dose, duration of treatment and frequency of drug administration among the two groups. Conclusion: The present study shows a high prevalence of selfmedication among medical and paramedical students of the institution. The knowledge about self-medication was encouraging among the students of both the groups. Keywords: Self medication, student, knowledge


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mussa S. Manhyabili ◽  
George M. Bwire ◽  
Lubinza Maziku ◽  
Mecky .I. N. Matee

Abstract Background: Self-medication practice (SMP) is the use of medication without the prescription of health care professionals. The major problems associated with self-medication practice have been drug resistance, drug side effects, wastage of resources, and serious health hazards including death. This study was conducted to assess the magnitude and factors associated with self-medication practice among adult household members in Shinyanga Municipal Council (SMC).Methods: A community based cross-sectional study was conducted in SMC, in September and October 2020. A multistage cluster random sampling was used to select study participants. Variables such as socio-demographic factors and reasons for SMP were summarized using frequencies and percentages. Chi square and logistic regression test were used to identify factors associated with SMP. All statistics were done using SPSS version 25.Results: In total 422 adult household members were studied, the magnitude of SMP among adult household members in SMC was 86%. The major symptom of illness that lead to SMP were headache 75(38.9%), fever 71 (37%) and cough 52 (27.1%) while paracetamol 84(43.8%), Ampiclox 30 (15.5%) and artemether lumefantrine 25 (13%) were the commonly used drugs. Perceptions of illness as mild 141(38.8%)and previous experience of self-medication138(38%) were the reasons for SMP. Participants who did not complete secondary education were seven times more likely to practice SMP as compared to those who had university education (adjusted odds ratio [aOR] =7.136, 95%CI=1.447-35.180, P=0.016). Participants with average household income (AHI) (<180,000 TSH=<78USD) were less likely to practice SMP compared to those with AHI (B 180,000Tsh) (aOR = 0.424, 95%CI = 0.214 – 0.840, P = 0.014).Conclusion: The magnitude of SMP in Shinyanga Municipal was found to be high.SMP was significantly associated with level of education and average monthly household income. Strengthening of the community’s awareness on the side effects of SMP including antimicrobial resistance in the study area is recommended.


2019 ◽  
Vol 19 (3) ◽  
pp. 2457-2461
Author(s):  
Stanley Mwita ◽  
Omary Meja ◽  
Deogratias Katabalo ◽  
Catherine Richard

Background: Anti- malarial self-medication practice in Africa is very common. It is considered as an alternative way for people who cannot afford the cost of health care services. This study was conducted to assess the magnitude and factors associated with anti-malarial self-medication practice among residents of Kasulu Town Council.Materials and methods: The study was a descriptive cross sectional study. Two hundred and eighty consenting respondents were selected by systematic random sampling and interviewed with the aid of a semi structured questionnaire to assess anti-malarial self- medication practice. A p value of less than 0.05 was considered statistically significant, at 95% confidence interval.Results: Prevalence of anti-malarial self-medication was (69.6%). Majority of the respondents (83.1%) reported that, they did not get better after self- medication. About 36% of the respondents metioned time taken in health facilities as the main factor for self- medication.Conclusion: This study revealed that, self-medication practice is very common among community members in Kasulu district. The main reasons identified for self-medication was long time taken to get treatment in health facilities.Keywords: Anti-malarial, Self- medication, Practice, Kasulu, Tanzania.


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